It was well past midnight, when Dr. John Langell, a general surgeon and founder of Xenocor, was awakened by the beeping of his pager. Out of habit, he turned on his iPhone, and it suddenly struck him that the LED light of his iPhone was as bright as conventional laparoscopy light sources. The realization that today’s technology has come a long way sparked an idea that gradually took wings to revolutionize the legacy laparoscopic technology that has prevailed for more than three decades. “We have developed the world’s first single-use, fog free HD laparoscopic system, which is poised to overcome the barriers of high capital cost in the current laparoscopic system market,” says Evan Kelso, CEO of Xenocor.

Xenocor’s disposable laparoscope, Xenoscope, is available in 10mm and 5mm scopes. The 5mm device is a deflectable scope, which means that the surgeon can articulate it inside the patient’s body. Xenocor’s value proposition lies in making minimally invasive surgical approaches more accessible to millions of patients by lowering upfront costs while increasing patient safety. As opposed to the huge capital expenditure incurred in buying a whole lot of equipment necessary to perform the conventional laparoscopic procedures, Xenocor solves for this market headwind with a simple, cost-effective solution. Xenoscope comes with integrated LED lights and a 1080p high definition camera. “A plug-and-play HD image processing adaptor, Xenobox, is all that is required to view the images on any HD monitor or tablet,” explains Tony Watson, VP of sales and marketing, Xenocor. The company is also set to forge strategic partnerships with leading manufacturers of insufflators, graspers, scissors, and energy sources used in laparoscopy.

The greatest benefit, however, is on the clinical front where Xenoscope completely eliminates the chances of endoscopy-related disease transmission because the scopes are not reprocessed to be used from one patient to the next.